Orbiter 3 Welcomes Two New Playwrights

In late 2015 Orbiter 3, a Philadelphia playwrights producing collective, announced they were accepting applications to add an additional playwright to their ranks. After receiving nearly 40 submissions the Orbiters decided to bring on not one, but two new playwrights: Lauren Feldman and Sam Henderson.

"Orbiter 3's ethos is to strive for inclusion and generosity, and bringing in two playwrights felt true to that," says Orbiter 3 Artistic Director Maura Krause. "We were so enlivened by reading the excellent work being written in this city, and found it hard enough to select only two new plays for production."

Lauren Feldman is a playwright, dramaturg, professor, teaching artist, devising collaborator, and a maker of contemporary circus-theater.She has been nominated for the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwright Award, Wendy Wasserstein Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize,ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award, and New York Innovative Theatre Award. She's a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and the New England Center for Circus Arts.

Sam Henderson is an actor who has appeared at the Arden Theatre Company, Lantern Theater Company, Theatre Exile, and the Wilma Theater, among others. As a playwright recent productions include 100 (2015 FringeArts Festival) and the Renegade Company's Damned Dirty Apes. A finalist for the Smith Prize for Political Theatre, Sam is a member of InterAct Theatre's Core Writer's Program, and the Foundry, a lab for emerging playwrights.

"Philadelphia is quickly developing into a national hub for new work and we are confident that we can manifest the resources to mount three brand new theatrical works in 2017," says Krause.

Orbiter 3 was founded in 2014 by six Philadelphia theatre artists in an effort to form a sustainable and radical theatre company. Beginning this past summer with James Ijames' Moon Man Walk and continuing through 2018, Orbiter 3 will produce a new work by each playwright. In 2018 when each production has been completed, the collective will dissolve.

Additional members of Orbiter 3 include Emily Acker, Emma Goidel, James Ijames, Mary Tuomanen and Douglas Williams. The collective is led by Artistic Director Maura Krause.

More information about Orbiter 3 can be found on the website Orbiter3.org.